AXD SATAN CAME ALSO

close to the dining-hall. Why else should they have
gone there? They were going to jump off from that
passage—from that end of that passage. And if
Harris had let down the drawbridge, they'd have
had the ' vestments' that night.1'
" I quite think they would," said Hubert, and
wiped the sweat from his face. " It was a damned
near thing. And that's why I'm so uneasy. I'll
swear they're doing something, and I want to know
what it is."
There was a little silence.
The sleepy afternoon sunshine was flooding the old
courtyard: somewhere a wood-pigeon was calling,
and a servant about his business was singing over
his work: asprawl on the roof of the coach-house,
Stiven was watching the foliage that hung like some
gorgeous arras upon the mountain side: the tinkle
of the fountain in the basin and the steady lisp of the
fall argued the virtue of idleness and freedom from
care.
" Let ill alone/' murmured Palin.
" So I will," said my cousin " —for twenty-four
hours. If nothing has happened by then, I'm going
out on patrol."
Five days had gone by since the attack upon the
castle, and we had already fallen into regular ways.
The cipher was still unsolved. Olivia and Palin fought
with it all the morning and again between five and
eight: during their hours of labour Hubert and I
played watchman or strove by more direct action to
discover where the 'vestments' were hid. After
luncheon and dinner we all of us took our ease, using
the courtyard by day and the ramparts when it was
dark; for Olivia's sake, as for mine, I treasured these
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